Marvel Taps Mahershala Ali for the Blade Revival

Fresh off the announcement that Avengers: Endgame has become the highest grossing movie of all time, Marvel Entertainment/strong> took to Comic Con 2019 to announce the next phase of movies. Amongst the announcements was Blade, which will be played by two-time Academy Award winner Mahershala Ali.

The Blade announcement was a bit of a shock, as no one expected a revival of the iconic character. While many expected announcements of movies like Black Widow and Thor 4, this was a pleasant surprise. The decision to cast Ali for the role was even more brilliant.

Blade is a half-human, half-vampire superhero that made his entrance in the Tomb of Dracula novels back in 1973. His introduction came in the 10th issue of the comic, where he dedicated his life to hunting vampires. However, the character became mainstream after Wesley Snipes portrayed it in Blade (1998), Blade II (2002), and Blade: Trinity (2004).

Blade is also the third character that Mahershala will play in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He played Cornell “Cottonmouth” Stokes, the main antagonist in the Luke Cage Netflix series. He also voiced Miles Morales’ uncle Aaron in Sony’s Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse.

For now, Marvel hasn’t revealed much about Blade, except that Mahershala will be playing the character.

Still, given the reaction that the announcement got, there’s no doubt that this will be one of the most anticipated of Marvel’s next phase movies.